


The Lunar Eclipse

by boolucole



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Gen, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:06:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24785884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boolucole/pseuds/boolucole
Summary: She was the daughter of an immortal angelic being directly connected to the planet's magic, and the greatest sorcerer Mystacor had ever seen. She was the student of that sorcerer's teacher. She was arguably immortal herself now. She was Glimmer of Brightmoon, and she was going to do this.She just hoped she survived.
Relationships: Adora & Bow & Glimmer (She-Ra), Adora & Glimmer (She-Ra), Angella/Micah (She-Ra), Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 54





	The Lunar Eclipse

Queen Glimmer of Brightmoon was on a mission.

It was one she’d been planning for a long time. For a while, Hordak had kept her busy with his slow encroachment into Rebellion territory, and then there was that whole thing with the Heart of Etheria, and _then_ Horde Prime had shown up. Getting kidnapped by a tyrannical space overlord, escaping, and finding out he’d turned most of her friends into mind-controlled slaves that almost couldn’t be freed were _not_ things that could be put on the back-burner.

Not to mention that during all of this, she _found out her **dad** was alive?! _I mean, sure, he was also being mind-controlled, but she felt she did a pretty good job of handling it.

So then she had about a decade of paternal affection and bonding to catch up on, which was not easy when her dad.

Couldn’t really know about this _particular_ mission.

Sneaking into Mystacor would have been easy if teleporting was an option, but she needed every single bit of magic the Moonstone had if she was going to pull this off. Getting there had been the easy part, since nobody could really call it _stealing_ if the Queen walked into the skiff hangar and said she was going out for a midnight flight, but being seen was out of the question.

Her aunt would be told, and the questions that would follow would see her window of opportunity close.

She dodged from alcove to alcove, pulling her cloak lower over her head. Reflective hair wasn’t really the best for sneaking, but she made do. It helped that Mystacor mages valued their sleep, since one wrong move could mean the difference between a pretty light show and a bloody one.

She just thanked her lucky stars that the lunar eclipse wasn’t being used to charge the defenses. Since the war was over, there was no reason to keep the secrecy spells up, and the magic that kept the city floating was vastly more ancient and permanent than a monthly moon ritual. The mages were more than happy to abandon the practice, both as a show of faith in the Fright-Zone’s penance and as a ploy to get more sleep.

The Moonwell was empty when she arrived. She didn’t have time to congratulate herself; the moons were shining through the skylight overhead, and they’d almost aligned. She had precious little time to make her preparations.

First, she climbed up to the Lunar Lenses and manually adjusted them. According to her calculations, a threefold triangle would be best for what she had in mind. The resonance of the light hitting the lenses, imperceptible to all but the most delicate and sensitive of magical instruments, would charge the air with light magic and amplify her own energy.

Next, she pulled four crystals out of her bag and arranged them in a square around the edges of the Moonwell’s dais. She’d gone back to the Chamber of Queens to find them, and it’d taken almost a whole _month_. They had to be natural, which meant no shaping them herself; she’d had to find four _perfectly_ rhomboid crystals untouched by man or magic and carefully detach them from the walls of the cavern. They would reinforce her connection to the Moonstone and ground her to Etheria.

Finally, she pulled out the sheaf of papers she’d recovered from a sealed-off suite of rooms just down the hall.

It had actually been trivial to find them. She’d just had to remember where in Mystacor she’d always been forbidden to go, and then go there. The sealing magic emanating from the dead-end corridor had practically lit up to her magical senses, and they’d only warded the door. The walls were perfectly vulnerable to teleportation.

She read over the notes again, and then her additions and corrections. This part had stumped her for a solid _twelve weeks_ , and it was only Entrapta looking over her shoulder one night in the library (and then being sworn to secrecy) that had finally put an end to it. She’d spent another few weeks rereading them, practicing the movements over and over in the privacy of her room whenever Bow wasn’t around (which wasn’t often). She’d rechecked her calculations and materials, and planned ahead for any contingency.

She’d written out a will.

Her fingers crinkled on the edges of the paper, then relaxed again. She forced herself to breath, slow and calm, and set the papers down. She couldn’t afford to let her nerves fray now, not when she was _so_ close.

High above her head, the moons aligned.

She stood up and faced the Moonwell. She reached into her bag and pulled out the vial of magic powder, then threw the bag to the side. She closed her eyes, and breathed deeply once more.

In.

And out.

“I love you dad, Adora, Bow.”

She uncorked the vial.

The Spell of Obtainment wasn’t a _difficult_ spell, by any means. The hardest part was drawing the shapes correctly with only one person, and even that was just a trial in patience and practice. Even holding the cage steady was just a lot of effort, and honestly, most mages didn’t get to expend much energy before it burst and allowed the Horror within to consume them.

The changes she’d made had complicated the process. It wasn’t calling upon an unnamed power anymore, and it wasn’t broadcasting on all frequencies either. She was specifically searching for _one_ being amid the endless horde of deities, demons, and patrons. Her target wasn’t particularly powerful compared to them, and might not know how to answer even if she hit the mark. She wasn’t sure where in the cosmos she was supposed to be looking, or when, or if those words even applied. Could you say you’re going somewhere or somewhen if space and time don’t exist where you’re going?

The spell circle was slightly different than the one Shadow Weaver and her father had used all those years ago. She’d replaced the sun glyph, meant to balance the moon’s power, with one that forged a connection to the Moonstone through her. The moons above and the magic power from the runestone would play off each other and strengthen the whole thing. Usually that would mean that the moon energy would overwhelm the spell circle and lead to a cataclysmic collapse of the array, but since it was all reaching out into the darkness instead of remaining in the Moonwell, that wasn’t a problem.

The reflecting pools surrounding the dais lit up with barely contained magic, lines and swirls flaring to life beneath the water. The crystals slowly began gleaming with an inner radiance that didn’t come from anywhere in the room, and she felt more than saw her own body begin to shine. Above her, the Lenses refracted the light of the three moons around the room, so potent it was almost like a laser. Nine points sparkled off the records hanging from the wall and the water around her. They shone in her eyes, which were glowing brightly with an inner fire.

Above her head, the cage took shape. Bars of light stitched themselves into the air, readying the magic to contain what she was summoning. She couldn’t take the time to reinforce it, couldn’t even turn her attention to it, but she prayed that it would hold. Flinging the door open wide invited unwelcome guests, after all.

As a final precaution, she summoned her father’s staff. She clenched her hands around the cool metal, already thrumming with the barely contained full might of the Moonstone, and thought of him as she raised it above her head and slammed the butt of it onto the ground before her.

She took a deep breath and screamed.

The reflecting pools instantly evaporated as the power she had been accumulating shot through the array. The spell wasn’t just powered by magic, it was also fueled by her own emotions; her rage and sadness would whip the storm of magic into a frenzy, making it flare like a bonfire, and her distress would shine like the sun to the entity she was calling. Her voice would tear out into the darkness and give it light.

A gale roared into life around her, rattling the records on the wall as it tore apart anything it could find. Her bag was flung into the air along with the notes she’d set down on top of it, and the tails of her tunic flapped behind her. She gripped the staff tighter and drew in another breath to continue screaming.

There was a gasp behind her. She couldn’t stop to see who it was, but she took a moment to stomp her foot. A spell circle flared to life at her feet, much too bright and rotating too quickly to be normal, and the entire dais was encased in a corona of sparkling purple light. She hadn’t wanted to waste any magic on it, but she couldn’t afford to be interrupted now, no matter who was here to stop her. She felt a spell creep across the wall, searching for any cracks it could exploit, but with a flex of her wrists it was washed away in a flood of power.

Another spell replaced it, and this one was far more skilled and powerful. It didn’t waste any time trying to find a crack, it simply tried to make its own. It slammed into her wall once, twice, three times, and she had to divert attention to reinforce it. The interloper paused, as if surprised, and she took the chance to bat it away before returning to her call.

If she missed her chance because of that, she’d kill whoever it was.

She breathed in again and continued screaming, clenching her fists as hard as she could and yelling all of her anger out into the black. She channeled her rage, her sadness, her despair, her desperation, and her hope. She channeled her love and her hate, her heart and her soul, her hopelessness and her will. She screamed it all into the nothingness beyond the edge of space, and all at once she felt a spark scream back.

Her voice was faltering, throat screamed raw and vocal cords shredded. Her arms and legs were shaking with the effort of holding herself and her staff steady. Shadows were creeping into the edges of her vision, and to her horror, she realized that they weren’t from exhaustion. The cage above her was gone, and a horror of eyes and hands was clawing at her body, at her clothes, at her outstretched arms; they couldn’t get a grip on her light-cloaked skin, but if that protection failed, if she exhausted herself before her spell was finished…

No.

It was called the Spell of Obtainment not because the caster obtained power, but because the horror obtained sway over the caster. It had happened to Shadow Weaver, and it had almost happened to her father.

But this wasn’t the Spell of Obtainment anymore. She had taken it and ripped it apart, claiming the best parts for herself and burning away anything she didn’t need. She had made this spell all on her own, taking the alterations Shadow Weaver had made and building onto them one hundred fold. It wasn’t the Spell of Obtainment anymore.

It was the Spell of Reclaiming. And she had _never_ belonged to this thing!

The intrusive magics were both back, but they weren’t trying to get past her wall anymore. They went up and past her, encasing the horror and drawing its arms away from her. They rebuilt the cage from the scraps of power it left behind and reinforced it with their own power. Blue and red glowed together, crafting a cage of deepest purple to isolate the horror, and Glimmer suddenly knew who was behind her.

Their voices joined hers, screaming with as much fury and sadness as her own had. Their magic joined hers, pushing the might of the Moonstone and the bridge to Etheria that last little bit it needed to go. Their minds joined hers, united in a singular purpose, and that spark that Glimmer had felt saw three minds reaching towards it. The spark drew itself together, pulling scraps and dregs of itself from the deepest reaches of the darkness, and that little spark screamed too.

All of the air and magic was sucked out of the room as the cage collapsed.

And then it returned in a thunderous explosion.

Glimmer was thrown back from the dais, her staff flying out of her hands. She skidded across the floor and tried not to throw up as all of her senses were thrown into disarray. The ceiling blurred in and out of focus, and her stomach turned in a triple somersault. She was exhausted, and empowered, and out cold, and more awake than she’d ever been. She didn’t know where her arms and legs were, but her magic, _oh_ , her magic was _everywhere!_ She felt as if she could teleport anywhere in the universe!

No-

No, it felt as if she _was_ teleporting. _Everywhere_ in the universe. All at once.

She didn’t know how long she laid there, eyes wide shut and mind far away. All she was conscious of was everything, that mysterious splendor laid out before her.

And then she took a breath.

And another.

And she was back.

Her throat hurt, first of all. All that screaming was probably not good for her.

Her head was spinning too, but she wasn’t sure if that was from the magical backlash or from hitting her head on the ground. Either way, she might need to get checked out for a concussion.

Her vision was surprisingly fine despite having been swimming not too long ago. Although, she _was_ still staring at the ceiling. She turned to her left to test it out, and saw her aunt lying there. She had both hands clenching her stomach, and she was groaning something awful. Magical exhaustion? Probably. Nausea was a common side effect of that.

She turned to her right. Her father was on her other side with an arm flung across his eyes. He was worryingly still at first, and she felt a stirring of concern, but then he took a single short breath and she knew he was fine. That was what he did when he was trying not to vomit.

She turned back to the ceiling and felt around in her own head a little. It felt a little disjointed, a little disconnected, up there in her own mind. She thought perhaps something might have been knocked loose by the brief time she’d spent staring into everything at once. She was sure it would pass, and then she’d be back to her old self.

Wait.

Wasn’t she doing something?

She blinked, and sat up.

“Glimmer.”

Tears pricked at her eyes.

“Mom?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Leave a comment down below and tell me the parts you loved and hated.


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